


Old Year’s Night

by TheSoupDragon



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (this is generally what we do over here for New Year - on the whole), British Christmas/New Year at the Holmeses, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Holmes brothers interactions, Just Relationships, M/M, No murder, So if you don’t like her - don’t worry, There is not - and never has been - a Eurus!, and some hot sex, christmas crackers, etc etc etc, how did that get in there?!, kudos or comment very much appreciated if you do, most (actually almost all) of my Johnlock can be defined as pre or post-Reichenbach..., no cases, no crime, set before The Reichenbach Fall, she doesn’t even exist! ;), the Holmes family getting together, whoops, why don't you read it and see if you like it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 11:03:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17243099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoupDragon/pseuds/TheSoupDragon
Summary: Christmas is over, thankfully for John. Now all he has to get through is New Year with - and at - the Holmeses.Nothing to it....





	1. New Year’s Eve

**Author's Note:**

> My huge and grateful thanks to the lovely, lovely [StarsAndStitches](http://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsAndStitches/pseuds/StarsAndStitches); for her always excellent and endlessly enthusiastic beta-reading! Also, I think she will be very pleased to _FINALLY_ see this one published! :)
> 
> NB.: If you are re-reading the first chapter (because you are coming back to this for chapter two), the eagle-eyed amongst you may spot some lines in there that you could have sworn you don't remember reading the first time. You'd be right: This is because they weren't there the first time. It's nothing major, but I have edited this first chapter a little since publishing, as I published it in a massive hurry to get it out for New Year's Eve. Sorry for altering things but hope you feel it's an improvement on the story... :)

John had barely taken his hand from the knocker when the vast oak door was yanked open, and Sherlock's father appeared beaming in the doorway, like a ray of sunshine dressed in checked shirt and navy corduroy. He stood there grinning for a moment and then he boomed, _"John!”_ and lunged forward to capture John in a genuinely affectionate embrace. John dropped his overnight bag just in time but the flowers and the bottle of wine he was carrying were unavoidably enveloped in Mr. Holmes' enthusiastic welcome. "Hello, hello! How lovely to see you, dear boy!" bellowed Mr. Holmes warmly, clapping John on the back and releasing him.  
“Er, _hello!”_ John echoed, pleasantly surprised by the unexpected warmth of the greeting. He had hugged Mr. Holmes back one-armed but with equal warmth, and he now awkwardly handed him the bottle of wine. “This is for you, actually!” he said. He kept hold of the flowers that he had nestled under one arm to give to Mrs. Holmes. As Mr. Holmes examined the label on the bottle, his delighted smile growing on his face, John couldn't help but be somehow struck again by the family resemblance and some of the mannerisms shared by Sherlock and his father. Superficially at least, they were just so incredibly similar.  
"Oh, jolly _good!_ Lovely! Thank you so much, John!” Mr. Holmes cried heartily, then he demanded, “Now, why are we still on the doorstep? Come in, come in!" He stepped aside for John to pass him and gestured invitingly into the house with an open arm. "Nice Christmas?" he asked, as John stepped over the threshold.  
"Er, yes, lovely, thanks, Mr. Holmes," replied John after the smallest pause, dropping his overnight bag against the wall in the hallway.  
Sherlock's father grimaced good-naturedly and waved a hand comically in the air, making John smile at the similarity to Sherlock once again. ”Oh, pffft!" he said. " _'Mr. Holmes!’_ Call me Siger, _please!"_ and then he nodded and gestured at the flowers. "She'll love those!" he said, and then he added, “I think Sherlock's in the kitchen..."

That was abruptly made quite apparent, as the sounds of an argumentative discussion suddenly erupted from the depths of the house; undoubtedly this would lead the way to the kitchen. John stopped in the hallway and glanced at Siger questioningly. "Sherlock and Mycroft have started already..." offered Siger woefully with a helpless shrug, and he turned to lead the way. Of course he was used to hearing the constant bickering between his sons, and it wasn't like John _wasn't,_ but he still felt the tiniest wobble of trepidation. He really hoped this wasn't going to end up being the New Year from Hell to match his dreadful Christmas. Christmas with his extended family had been bad enough, with constant atmospheres springing up and frequent barbed comments pretending to be innocent conversation. He wasn’t at all keen on attending another festival of family feuding that he couldn't just casually walk away from, and as an invited guest of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, casually walking away from this one wouldn't be quite so easy.  


Siger walked ahead of John until they reached the short dark inner hallway that opened directly into the kitchen, whereupon he suddenly stepped back against the wall, and gestured for John to go through the doorway first.  
Mrs. Holmes spotted him in the hallway just before he entered the kitchen itself. _"John!"_ she almost shouted in delight, with barely disguised relief. "How wonderful! So you did make it!" She raised her voice, partly to override Mycroft and Sherlock's heated discussion, and to warn them that they were now to be on their best behaviour, but it was clear she was also genuinely pleased to see John. She came to meet him and hugged him too, as warmly as Mr. Holmes had done, and narrowly missed crushing his poor flowers again. When she released him, she held onto his upper arms and squeezed. "How are you? Did you have a nice Christmas?" she asked. It was true that he was well, but again John stuck firmly to his story and politely described his Christmas as having been 'lovely.'  
"We're _so_ pleased to have you here!" said Mrs. Holmes enthusiastically and even with the Bickering Brothers glowering at each other behind her in the background, John still felt cheered. He immediately felt more welcomed and wanted here than he had done in anyone else's house for a long time. He handed her the now slightly travel-worn and crumpled bunch of flowers.  
"I'm glad to be here, Mrs. Holmes," he said, and he meant it. She smiled broadly and gave the flowers a deep appreciative sniff. "Oh, please, it's Lucia, John!” she said, “ _'Mrs. Holmes'_ , goodness! And, oh, I _do_ love chrysanthemums, John, thank you so much. I'll go and put these in water.” As she went, she flicked a glance at Siger who was busy looking at something on his phone, and said pointedly, “Tea, darling?” and Siger immediately shoved his phone in his pocket and set to work making a fresh pot for John.  
Sherlock and Mycroft had stopped squabbling - and that really was the best description for what they had been doing - as soon as Lucia had shouted John's name. Neither of them had spoken to John whilst she was in the room welcoming him, but as she left the kitchen to dig about in the adjoining scullery for a suitably sized vase, Mycroft stood up from his chair in a polite gesture of welcome and nodded to John. "John," he said cordially, meaning; _’Hello.’_  
John smiled. "Hello Mycroft. How's tricks?”

Sherlock, who had stayed seated, snorted air through his nose at this and John had to suppress a smirk at Mycroft's expression. Mycroft looked as disdainful as ever. He frowned delicately. “By _‘tricks'_ , John, you would be referring to what, exactly?"  
John shrugged. "Oh, you know. Everything. The government. The Queen."  
Now Sherlock actually slightly laughed but it still sounded a bit snorty.  
Mycroft could see what was going on here and he chose to rise above it. "As far as I am currently aware, all is well at home and Her Majesty is presently enjoying the delights of her Sandringham estate." Then he raised his eyebrows in an expression that clearly read, _’Is this really how it is going to be? How tiresome!’_ and John, chastened, thought that actually, he really should be friendly and polite here, he was a guest in another family's home, after all. Some best behaviour was required from him too. “Well, good! Good...That’s—that’s good," he said quickly, contrite, “...and you, Mycroft, are you well?" John had never really asked Mycroft that before.  
Mycroft was surprised into an honest answer. “I...thank you, I am. Very well. I trust you...are...well, too?"  
John smiled and was about to answer in the positive when Sherlock, who had grown tired of their very civilised exchange and hadn't even had a chance to speak to John yet, snapped, "Yes, yes, yes, all well, we're all very well. Any news, John? There's absolutely no phone reception up here."  
He was referring to news from Greg Lestrade, who was supposed to be supplying them with results on a suspect's DNA test.  
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine, thanks, Sherlock! And how are you?" John asked, cheerfully sarcastic, before shaking his head in exasperation and responding in a more normal tone of voice to Sherlock's question about Lestrade by saying, "...And yeah, you _were_ right, it _was_ the brother's ex-partner. He _had_ hidden the iron in the top of the broom cupboard after all." Sherlock briefly made a world-recognised 'fist of triumph' gesture and shook it in the air in front of his chest. "I knew it," he said smugly. "Of course it was him. _Obvious."_  
"Oh, of course, obvious," said John, ironically, with a trace of a smile. On seeing Sherlock's child-like delight at being proved right, he forgot his irritation. It never failed to amuse him how pleased Sherlock was when his deductions were confirmed by steadfast unbelievers. Even when they concerned the mysterious hiding places of murder weapons.  
Just then, Mrs. Holmes came back into the kitchen. In one hand she carried a large pale gold ceramic vase, which now contained John's bunch of red and green chrysanthemums, and in the other hand she bore a plate of home made mince pies and ginger biscuits. She placed them both down delicately side by side on the table. "There," she said. "Tuck in! You must be famished after that awful train journey, John! And what a bit of luck then that you managed to catch that earlier one, after all!” and she smiled and winked at John. If John didn't know her better, he might have been slightly taken aback by that very friendly wink, but as he knew her - and her younger son - well enough by now, he wasn't. He realised that of course she had caught the brief exchange about the iron-turned-murder-weapon and the suspect's DNA, and seen Sherlock's reaction. More over, she had witnessed John's response to his reaction, and knew exactly what he was thinking about it all. That conspiratorial wink of hers meant that while she knew Sherlock's joyful and enthusiastic response to the confirmation that the finding of a murder weapon's hiding place wasn't exactly _normal_ \- in most ordinary people’s opinions, at least - this was Sherlock they were talking about, and she had clearly long accepted as ‘normal’ _his_ version of normality. Clearly she shared John’s feelings about it too -it was just _Sherlock_. The fact that John had accepted it all as normal as well she seemed to find mildly amusing.  


They sat at the kitchen table for the tea, mince pies and biscuits, and discussed how Christmas had been - for John, no discussion necessary, it had been absolutely terrible, but he stuck to his cover story and said it had been lovely again for the sake of politeness. For the Holmeses, it had been either bearable, moronic, wonderful or tremendous; depending on which member of the family was answering the question.  
John was then informed by Lucia, over some freshly-made clementine mince pies produced hot from the Aga by Siger and a desperately needed cup of tea supplied by Lucia, that a Great Aunt Agatha was to be joining them later for dinner.  
_“Great Aunt?”_ scoffed Sherlock, interrupting her and nearly spitting out his mince pie in the process. “She’s not _our_ Great Aunt!” he declared, with evident disgust at the very idea.  
Lucia turned to John and held out the diminished plate of mince pies and biscuits. “Well, no,” she explained, ignoring Sherlock’s outburst, “she’s not actually, she’s Jilly next-door’s sister.”  
It turned out that she was the elderly next-door neighbour’s widowed younger sister, and a frequent visitor there. Agatha was due to stay at her sister's house next door, cat-sitting the elderly sister's elderly sibling cats whilst the sister herself was up in Scotland visiting her grandchildren for Hogmanay. When the senior Holmeses had heard about this plan, they had immediately invited Agatha round to join them for their traditional New Year's Eve dinner.  
Agatha had become a close friend of the Holmeses by long acquaintance, as they and their next-door neighbour had been living in the same two houses for the last forty years. “—So we’re all like a little extended family,” Siger chipped in, helping himself to another mince pie. John just caught Mycroft's face recoil in a moue of distaste at the description before he recovered his composure.  
"Oh, she's absolutely hilarious," interjected Mrs. Holmes, "she's _such_ great fun!"  
Mycroft glanced at Sherlock and Sherlock glanced at Mycroft. No words were needed. John could read everything on their faces.  
"Don't give her any gin, Mother," said Sherlock warningly.  
"Heaven forbid! One could hardly forget the events of last New Year's Eve!" chimed in Mycroft, placing his fingertips rather delicately to his forehead and closing his eyes theatrically.  
This both confirmed John's suspicions about the "hilarity" and "great fun"-ness of the Great Aunt, but it also served to utterly amaze him - the Holmes brothers actually in agreement about something. Incredible. Unheard of.  
As he was pondering this, something rubbed firmly against his lower leg. He jumped and looked down in surprise. “Oh! There’s a cat!” he said, surprised at its sudden appearance, and he reached down to stroke it.  
“ _And_ theres a cat!” sneered Sherlock, clearly not liking it.  
It clearly liked John. It purred loudly and rubbed its head against his leg repeatedly. It was a very pretty cat - long haired, grey and white, and with very tufty ears.

“She’s been upstairs on our bed again, Siggy!” announced Lucia with a firm look in his direction, and then turned back to John. “Jilly next-door adopted her from the Cat Rescue, but she didn’t get on with her two, so we’ve taken her in,” she said, by way of explanation. She got up from the table to make more tea.  
“ ‘Didn’t get on?’ ” said Mycroft, incredulously. “More likely the evil twins tried to neutralise it.”  
Lucia was filling the kettle but she said loudly over the noise, “Don’t be so dramatic, Mykie! No, John, they just didn't get on...”  
“And it’s got some ridiculous name,” added Sherlock, sipping his tea, turning the newpaper that lay on the table towards him to read the small stories at the bottom of the front page. Siger laughed defiantly. “Ridiculous?!” he snorted good-humouredly, and he turned to John. “She’s called Persephone...” he paused and then added in a deep theatrical monotone, “‘Queen of the Underworld!’” He smiled at John, who was still stroking the cat’s head as she rubbed against his leg. John grinned at the name. And the theatrics. “Nice name!” he said, approvingly.  
“She’s a nice little cat,” added Siger. “Part Persian from the look of her fur!”  
The cat came up on its back legs to butt its head against John’s knee. John reached down to stroke her again. She wouldn’t leave him alone.  
“Beastly thing,” snorted Mycroft, “don't encourage it.”  
“No, come on - she's sweet,” said John, stroking her. “She’s purry and friendly. What more do you want from a cat?” The cat twined around his leg, winding her tail around his calf. He wasn't much into cats actually, but this was a very friendly one and he definitely had time for such an affectionate animal.  
“I call her ‘Percy’ as well,” continued Siger, “but if I write it, I write it ‘Purrcy,’ ” and then he spelt the word out. Lucia came back to the table with the re-filled pot of tea. “You are silly!” she said as she put the teapot down and nudged his shoulder with her elbow. Sherlock made a discreet vomiting noise and Mycroft snatched up the paper and hid his face with it, much to John’s amusement.  


No, John thought, relieved, maybe this was going to be fine...Who knew, maybe it would even be more than fine.


	2. New Year's Eve (Late Afternoon)

The early part of the afternoon passed uneventfully. Due to the lack of wifi on his own laptop, Mycroft had been forced to resort to using his parents' ancient desktop computer in the study to check on some dodgy diplomatic situation in Uganda and John was in the sitting room, idly leafing through one of the few books that he had expressed an interest in receiving for Christmas and had actually received. He had yet to start reading it properly but was enjoying the easy pleasure of reading the long, rambling introduction. Sherlock had disappeared somewhere upstairs.

John already knew that Sherlock had planned on bringing his violin this weekend; he had told John that his mother had insisted on it, and so John knew that he had it with him, but when a violin suddenly began playing somewhere upstairs above John's head, he was momentarily surprised and he stopped reading to listen. John didn't have a clue what Sherlock was playing, he still knew very little about classical music, but he knew whether he either liked or didn't like the various pieces of music that Sherlock played. This...well, this was beautiful. Something about the violin not being in the same room as John, but upstairs in the room directly above; with the acoustics of the old house, the echoes and wonderful quality of resonant sound travelling down through the wooden floorboards…It was vintage surround-sound. It was, quite simply, magical to hear. 

John had to stop everything and listen. He could not have carried on reading if his life had depended on it. He closed the book, his finger marking his page, and listened. When the piece of music finally ended and the last note had faded, it seemed to John like the silence suddenly rushed in to fill the space the music had created. Then the ceiling creaked softly directly overhead as Sherlock moved away from where he was standing in the room above, and John wanted to call up to him, ‘Play something else!’ but he didn't like to shout out like that in someone else's house. Then John heard Sherlock talking quietly to his mother, who was also upstairs, though he couldn't hear what was said. A moment later, Sherlock came down the wooden stairs, which were old oak and creaked comfortingly with every step. He stood in the sitting room doorway and said to John, "Mother said to tell you your room's ready if you want to unpack." The violin and bow still dangled elegantly from his hands. John obediently laid his book down on the chair, and went and retrieved his small overnight bag from the hallway, where he'd left it when he first arrived. Sherlock leaned against the doorjamb in the sitting room doorway, picking out discordant notes and waited for him to go and get it, and then he lead the way upstairs to show John to the room that would be his.  
'It's like being on holiday,' thought John, following Sherlock, feeling like a child again, and remembering long ago stays with Scottish relatives in the Christmas holidays.

He followed Sherlock up the stairs and they turned left and left again into the bedroom above the sitting room. So Sherlock had been playing his violin in the room that was to be John's, directly above John's head as he sat downstairs. As this thought went through John's mind, Sherlock read it in his usual way and explained, "The sound is very pure in here. It's the wooden panelling on the walls."  
"Oh, right, I see,” said John, vaguely, thinking, 'And you wanted to play in it just before you brought me up here. Why was that?' He didn't ask though. 

The greenness of the view out of the window drew him over immediately, and he put his overnight bag on the bed and went and looked out. The bedroom was at the back of the house and it looked out over the garden and the open countryside beyond. “Lovely view,” remarked John.   
“Mmmm,” replied Sherlock, holding his violin and bow together in one hand and running a thumbnail up and down a natural groove in the wood at the edge of the window frame in a way that suggested he had done it many times before. John looked around. It was a very neutral bedroom, plainly decorated with white bedlinen. “Whose bedroom was this?” he asked.  
“No one’s,” replied Sherlock, still running his thumb slowly up and down. “Guest—"  
He stopped and froze, his thumb halfway down the frame.  
"Guest bedroom?" prompted John, thinking that Sherlock looked like he did when some kind of massive deduction was taking place. He didn’t answer. “Where the guests sleep?” John asked with a grin.  
Sherlock's mouth opened slightly but he didn't say anything. John waited, eyebrows raised. He didn't ask if Sherlock was ok, he knew this look well enough - he just waited. Sherlock could be thinking about anything. Christ, he could be mysteriously be putting two and two together on a cold case about a stolen work of art and a lost kitten that had happened six years ago.  
“Er...er, yes. Guest bedroom, yes…” said Sherlock vaguely. He looked at John. Then he swirled into action, almost appearing to shake his head briskly to clear it. His eyes flicked to John's face. “Want to see my room?” he asked mischievously.  
“Come on, then,” said John, wondering what that was all about but knowing better than to ask. Sherlock would tell him when he wanted to. 

He followed Sherlock down the hallway to the very next door along, which stood slightly ajar, and as Sherlock pushed the door open, John followed him in. “Wow!” he said quietly, as he entered the room. 

Sherlock’s bedroom was nothing like John had thought it might be. John had imagined - when he’d even thought about it, that was, which had only really been since he’d come upstairs to see where he would be sleeping - that Sherlock’s childhood bedroom would be vaguely like his bedroom at Baker Street; not exactly _neat,_ but orderly, somehow, with the same bare walls and plain furnishings. It wasn’t. It _was_ like his Baker Street bedroom in that it wasn’t exactly neat - Sherlock had slept in this room last night after all, so the bed was unmade (nothing new there, thought John) - but the main difference was that the walls were covered with pictures. There were various photographs, paintings and prints; some in frames and some not. There was an small, unframed print of Escher’s ‘Waterfall’ - which was one of his that John quite liked too, funnily enough - and there were quite a few seascapes, including a lino-cut black and white depiction of a three-masted sailing ship in rough seas and with a bright crescent moon overhead, and a glowingly beautiful, ornately framed print of The Fighting Temeraire, by J. M. Turner, the colours of the setting sun in the painting vibrantly bright against the wall. 

Sherlock had set his violin and bow back into the open case, resting on top of a tall chest of drawers next to a desk, and he now stood in front of the desk looking intently through a brown leather bound notebook that he had just picked up from it. He seemed suddenly pre-occupied, so John enjoyed looking around the room without Sherlock observing him doing it. There were a long set of shelves attached to the wall above the desk, and they were just as busy - jammed full, in fact. Lots of interesting artefacts lined them in an untidy arrangement; several large smooth stones, a jagged and milky-looking group of natural quartz crystals, a small set of antique weighing scales with tiny brass weights, a dusty looking peacock feather in a jam jar, and at the end, some large and shiny-bright huge plastic molecules. They were quite new looking and had obviously been put together from some kind of molecule construction kit. There were several, but of them all, John only recognised formaldehyde. A child scientist’s version of the Airfix plane kits, thought John, smiling a little. He had had the Airfix planes, himself. 

Then he noticed an actual real live (dead) stuffed grey squirrel, pushed to the back of the shelves behind another plastic molecule. The squirrel was sitting up on its hind paws on a rock and was slightly lumpy looking, and a little twee, its paws positioned to hold a wizened looking acorn. It had very shiny eyes and John didn’t like the way it was looking at him. He grimaced a little back at it. “An early interest in taxidermy?” John asked, perturbed, pointing over in its general direction. Sherlock glanced over at it and raised an eyebrow dismissively. “Oh, _that._ That’s Algernon,” he said. “He belonged to Uncle Rudy…apparently…or so he said.”  
“What, you mean as a pet?” asked John going over to look at the horrible thing more closely. He found he didn’t particularly want to touch it, however.  
“Who would know…” replied Sherlock vaguely, turning his back to John. He set down the notebook and picked up a piece of sheet music, studying it briefly before he returned it to the pile of various papers which covered the desk and which he then began to rifle through.

Now John went over to look out of the window. It faced the same direction as the one in John’s room, and looked out over the garden and the countryside, but it was a much larger window, so more could be seen. “God, the views here!” said John admiringly, taking it all in. He was far too used to looking at the grey, beige and brick cityscape of London, with barely a single tree dotted here and there to break the monotony. 

Sherlock stepped away from the desk to go and sit on his unmade bed. He picked up his phone from where it was charging on the bedside table to check his texts. “Mmmm. Yes,” he said distractedly, suddenly beginning to text in his usual frantic way. Now he had moved, John noticed that also on top of the chest of drawers, there was a very good sketch of the front of Holmes house made in graphite pencil and on heavy cartridge paper. It was propped slightly askew against an atlas of historical sea charts. The edges of the paper were slightly curled and it had obviously been there for some time. John couldn’t make out the signature but it looked vaguely familiar, so he went back over to look closely, and saw with surprise that it was Sherlock’s. “Wow! This is really good!” he said admiringly, picking it up carefully by the edges. “When did you do this?” The signature, while definitely Sherlock’s, wasn’t Sherlock’s current one; although the name was clear and the handwriting similar, it was obviously a more child-like hand.  
“Oh, ages ago,” replied Sherlock, finishing his text and putting his phone back onto the bedside table as he stood up. “Come on, John, I want tea,” he said abruptly. “Let’s go back downstairs,” and he walked towards the door.  
‘Oh. Well. Ok, then!’ thought John, pulling a face to match his thought, and slightly puzzled at the turn of events. Sherlock seemed to have something on his mind all of a sudden. But what was new about that? So he just said cheerfully, “Ooh, yeah, tea, lovely,” put the sketch back carefully where it had been, and followed Sherlock back downstairs again. 

~~~~~

Downstairs in the kitchen, Mycroft had taken his suit jacket off but was still in his waistcoat, his shirt sleeves rolled up neatly, beginning to make tea in a vast red teapot. John found this sight strangely amusing, he didn’t know why, but seeing Mycroft being all domesticated was… _weird._ John knew better than to make any mention of it though. Mycroft was standing at the sink when they entered the room, swirling some hot water around in the teapot to warm it first. 

Sherlock sat down smartly at the table and picked up the paper again. He turned straight to the obituary pages. “Good. You’re making tea. Love some,” he said smugly to Mycroft, not looking at him, scanning the columns as he spoke.  
John noticed Mycroft’s shoulders tighten. “How very observant of you,” Mycroft replied drily, not looking around at Sherlock either and emptying the now warmed pot out into the sink with a brisk, slightly aggressive flick. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to help by getting some fresh milk? I believe the jug on the table is nearly empty.”  
Sherlock didn’t answer but he shoved his chair back a bit harshly (to show his irritation at Mycroft getting one over at him, John thought, perceptively), and then he stalked over to the fridge to get the milk. 

Just then, Siger came bursting into the room through the back door, laden with a huge, thick wicker basket full of split logs and kindling. The blast of air that came in with him and the logs was icy and sharp, and it carried the smell of the snow that had been forecast that morning. “Brrr! Jolly freezing out there!” declared Siger happily, shoving the heavy back door firmly shut with his behind and putting the over-loaded log basket down next to the doormat. He hoicked off his wellington boots and replaced them with his ready and waiting sheepskin slippers, setting the boots neatly down by the back door. Then he turned to the assembled group and said, “Well! Are we all excited for the Old Year’s Night? The heralding in of the New Year?” He rubbed his hands together gleefully.   
“Ecstatic,” replied Sherlock dully, who was resting his chin on one hand and still looking down at Mycroft’s newspaper as he idly turned the page. Then he sat up suddenly, slamming the hand that had been supporting his chin down on the table with a bang. “Why can’t we have a nice murder over Christmas?” he asked the room in general, beginning to flick the remaining pages over violently in irritation until he got to the last one. “Just the one would be nice…” he added sulkily as he closed the paper and pushed it grumpily aside.  
“Dar— _ling,”_ chided Lucia absentmindedly, coming in from the scullery with a great handful of cut parsley. She went over to the sink to tip away the jug of water the parsley had just been residing in, and set the jug upside down on the draining board to dry. With the other hand, she simultaneously and efficiently started rinsing the huge bunch of parsley under the tap. John watched, impressed with her seamless multi-tasking abilities, while at her side, Mycroft tentatively stirred some more loose Earl Grey tea leaves into the pot and peered dubiously into its depths.  
“That won’t be strong enough for that big pot, darling, put some more in,” she said to him briskly, as an aside, and then to Siger, she said, “Sigs, darling, do you think you could chop this up?” She flicked the water off the parsley into the sink and reached up to a shelf in the wooden beam above her head for a big double-handled herb chopper. Mycroft absently handed her a tea towel from a rail next to him and she wiped the chopper blade briefly before then handing that to Siger as he came over to the sink to wash his hands. Neither she, nor anyone else present, paid any attention at all to Sherlock’s request for a murder; making John smile to himself at the gloriously oiled workings of the Holmes family mechanics. How nothing like his own they were, he thought…and thank God for that.  
“Maybe it’s too much to ask over the festive period,” he suggested to Sherlock, about the nice murder. “Everyone’s probably quite busy…” But something Siger had said had caught his attention. “Sorry Siger, what did you just say? You just called it the Old Year’s Night? What’s that? I’ve never heard it called that before!”  
"Oh _Gooood,"_ Sherlock groaned quietly, indicating a family joke which was about to be explained. Again. Siger totally ignored him on this too. “I’m glad you asked, John!” he said, his pleasure at the imminent re-telling very evident.  
At John’s side, Sherlock muttered, “Of course you are…” making John nudge his ankle with his heel to shut him up.

Siger, undaunted, sat down at the table with the huge bunch of freshly-washed parsley, the elegant silver herb chopper and a gigantic rustic wooden chopping board and set to work. “I spent some time in Scotland, up in the Highlands when I was a young man - long before I met Lucia!” He paused in his chopping to smile at John. Sherlock made some snoring noises and laid his forehead straight down onto the table. Now John actually kicked him discreetly. He knew the showing off was all just for his benefit so he ignored it too. “Shhh, Sherlock,” he said quietly, and to Siger he said encouragingly, “Go on!”  
Siger scooped back all of the chopped parsley he had just created from the edges of the board into a little mountain, and started again with the chopper, changing direction to get everything. “Up there, they still—well, not everyone, John, but some of the old folk—back then they still used the term ‘the Old Year’s Night’ as a shortening for ‘the last night of the Old Year’…instead of, as we call it, ‘New Year’s Eve.’” He looked up at John and smiled. “The real oldies still bear a grudge about the Battle of Culloden! It’s typical of the Scots. They’re a bit of a pessimistic bunch. Very backward-looking, rather than forward-looking…‘The dour Scot’, eh?”  
Sherlock lifted his head and stared at him. “John had Scottish grandparents, father,” he said neutrally.  
Siger paused in his chopping for a millisecond before John (who could have killed Sherlock for making Siger feel uncomfortable on his behalf for absolutely no good reason) glanced at Sherlock and said quickly, “Yeah, I do, I _did,_ but—” now he turned his attention to Siger, who didn’t know whether to apologise for that remark or not, “—no, you’re quite right, Siger, they do. They are!” He grinned, making Siger look relieved. “I’ve never heard Old Year’s Night; my grandparents always called it Hogmanay, but I do remember many a fairly glum phrase from my Scottish grandfather, actually! I think one of his favourites was—” and here John suddenly adopted the melodic Highland accent of his forebears “—‘Aye, a green Christmas fills the churchyard!'” He sang it out in the way that his grandfather used to say it. Which was almost cheerfully. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him. 

John dropped the accent and hastened to explain. “It means, a wet and damp winter…well, _Christmas_ \- one that’s _green_ as opposed to _white,_ white being all the frost and snow - fills the churchyard…meaning, the mild weather kills more people, because all the bugs and germs don’t get killed off in the cold weather so they end up…er…killing _people_ off…” he hadn’t meant it to sound quite so depressing. But Sherlock was sanguine about it.  
“Sounds like my kind of Christmas,” he said cheerfully from John’s side, making John splutter with unexpected laughter. John looked at him, still laughing, to see Sherlock smirking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to StarsAndStitches for some of the excellent science ideas of the contents of Sherlock's bedroom...! It wouldn't have looked the same without the plastic molecules, the Escher print or the atlas of historical sea charts, Stars, honestly!!! ;)
> 
> Also thanks to SaturnIsTheBetterOfMe for the violin carrying confirmation question!!!


End file.
